David Blandy, Crossroads

About

Crossroads began as an investigation into the mythology surrounding the legendary Robert Johnson, a bluesman with three gravestones, 29 recorded songs and only two known photographs, who reputedly sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. Filmed in the heat of the Mississippi Delta, Crossroads is in part a portrait of a landscape still deeply, though not officially, segregated. The film follows a man with a guitar, the Blues Legend, on his journey to the Crossroads to recover his lost soul. The figure roams the landscape looking for a genuine Blues experience, picking guitar on porches and walking dusty roads, to a haunting soundtrack of slide guitar music. Undermining this romantic vision is the appearance of an inverted Minstrel, an alter-ego who haunts the journey. In this quest for the authentic, the search for the Blues becomes a wider search for self, one man's search for reconciliation with a plundered culture. Crossroads is an Arts Council England National Touring Commission initiated by Spike Island and supported by 176, Zabludowicz Collection.